550 years Later
by I-Wanted-Fawlkes
Summary: Nanaki Red XIII is looking for one last adventure before the end of his days. As the oldest being on the planet he has plenty of knowledge but his body has become weak. Join him on his depressing story into the past.
1. Chapter 1

550 years later

(FF7 fiction)

Intro: This is my first Story, so please provide constructive comments, and don't be afraid to rip into me. For later use the conversion rate for Nanaki's years is one year of age is only 1/3 a year of age to him

Chapter 1: Cosmo Canyon

Meteorfall, Geo-stigma, and Omega, these were three great crisis that humanity had to face in there days. No matter what was thrown at them they endured, but… monsters thrived. Humanity's numbers dwindled. Only a handful was left who could fight. Humans were finally killed by hordes of monsters and time. Not one is left today. All my friends… gone.

For me, there was a silver lining; the life stream granted me favor. I had offspring with a pride of lionesses. Now I have this tribe in Cosmo canyon. You may not bare my flame but you are still leonine.

"Still 'passing down wisdom' to my children father?" asks a passing leonine

"Now Strife, you know I'm too old to hunt at my age. This is the best thing I have to do every day"

Nanaki's four direct children are all around 60 years old. Two boys named Strife and Wallace and two daughters, named Lockhart and Valentine.

"I know father" begins Strife, "but if Lockhart or Valentine learns you're telling their babies horror stories again…"

"Oh they don't care!" interrupts Nanaki "They just hold grudges from when I left them in Cosmo and took you and Wallace to Midgar… I would have taken them but the trip was too hazardous for you all…"

"Just find something better to do father…" sighs Strife

Ashamed Nanaki goes for a walk through Cosmo canyon. Greeting all his kin, they are still low in number but they survive with none the less. Half the tribe is just lions who didn't inherit the right genes or were lions to begin with. Evolution would soon yield a race of his people; it would just take some time.

He wanders through the ruins of the old town. Memories of everyone sitting around the bon fire come back to him and he smiles. He stops; not looking at what he knows is there, "Grandfather… I'm just glad I was there" He whispers. He passes through the cave of GI, the stench is terrible. On the other side of the cave he hikes up the canyon to Seto.

"Oh Seto, I'm old, I'm approaching 600 years old. My end is near I can feel it, I'll give two more years, then the life stream will take me. I'm not going to just sit here though… Did you know the planet heals its wounds? I'm sure by now the north cave is healed up quite nicely. What am I saying? off course you knew that. I wonder what Cloud and everyone would think of it now. Maybe that's what I should do; visit the north cave to see if it's healed."

He smiles and laughs as he drifts into sleep. In his dream he envisions the north cave. At first it's the giant scar it was when they defeated Sephiroth. All of a sudden a wall of the life stream bathes over it. He sees rock being restored, and the surface becomes flat rock, then grass grows over, then beautiful trees. Finally it becomes an astonishing paradise, surprising do to the fact it's surrounded by tundra.

A voice begins to beckon him to come to this place "just do it Red, one last adventure" He wakes up a little shocked. The voice was so familiar, and only they called him Red… Nanaki hurry's back to his tribe.

"Strife! Gather your siblings and come to me!" roars Nanaki

Everyone gathers in the center of the old town where a fire burns. Nanaki emerges from a building wearing an armlet over his shoulders. Materia is present in the armor, 3 faint green and 1 purple glows can be seen in the shoulder.

"Everyone I am going on a journey up north" He pronounces "and I will be going alone"

Shock pulses through the crowd as Nanaki descends down the hill towards the exit.

"Father is this because what I said?" asks Strife as he passes

"Well no, but you made me start thinking, so I won't be back anytime soon, you're in charge. And remember I love you all."

Strife watches as Nanaki fades into the western sun set.

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

550 years later

Chapter 2: The road to Nibelheim

Nanaki, having just left his village for one last adventure up to the north cave, is full of energy. Jumping down the sheer cliff faces of the Cosmo canyon area is a breeze to him. So far he's been using his pre-emptive materia to avoid the monsters from seeing him. He's starting to get bored though; he decides to take on some monsters for fun. At the bottom of the cliff is a group of 3 Skee Skee, He goes invisible using his pre-emptive material and perches on a rock above them.

He pounces down biting one in the neck and throwing him into the rocks. The other two charge, Nanaki hits one with fire3 and tackles the other to the ground. On top of it he claws it across the face, the Skee skee's head falls to the side, his beak opens and he spits out a pile of Gil. Nanaki stares down in horror as memories of Cloud making jokes like "ha that monster must have ate a wallet" or "man look that one just got his allowance" spill back to him. He starts to think about Cloud and everyone. Soon it's a torrent of the past and he can't help but think of his dead friends. Nankai starts to look around in a panic. "Dammit!" he yells through tears. He leaves the suffering Skee skee's and staggers in the direction of Nibelheim.

It all started 547 years ago, with the death of Vincent. Vincent over did himself in defeating Omega. He destroyed his own body in defense of the planet. Shortly after him went Shelke, none of us could provide her with the mako she needed to survive after we destroyed the last mako reactors. She and Vincent were good friends, everyone liked to think they met in the after life.

Nanaki's tears have dried up around the time he passes a family of Grand horns drinking from the river. He gazes over the river in its vastness, he has swum across it before, he can now, and it will just take some time. He wades into the shallow water and begins to swim with the flame of his tail poking high above the water.

Oh poor Barret, everyone knew the stress would finally get to him, but never the way it did. Barret had spent the years after Meteorfall trying to rebuild towns like Corel and Rocket town. He also invested thousands in finding alternative energy sources to mako. Those and his duty of defending places from monsters kept him spread thin. He hardly ever had time to see Marlene. He began to drink heavily and eat a lot more, he never actually thought about it. He just sub consciously drowned his sorrows in alcohol and fried food. Now physically he looked fine, do to all the exercise he got, but internally his liver started to fail and his heart problems grow more frequent. Finally one day in his late 50's his body just gave out on a construction job, dropped dead yelling at a foreman. His memorial service was huge in Corel, after all the people he helped it wasn't a surprise. Everyone from Meteorfall was there. No one saw much of Marlene after that, poor girl lost everything.

Nanaki, reaching the other shore looks around to see an endless field of green, well except the jagged mountains in the horizon. After walking a few miles he starts to pick up on signs of wolves, could only be Nibel wolves in this area, he was getting close. He stops for a moment to feel the grass on his paws, living in Cosmo he doesn't get to see grass much anymore. He begins to feel alive with energy again and takes off in a sprint towards Nibelheim. The wind blowing through his hair, the force pushing him forward, sensations he hadn't felt in years. He runs through the old areas where the forests used to be, all cut down in Barret's "reconstruction" plan. It was sad really, getting rid of mako just lead us to go after other fuel sources that would destroy the world, just slower. Well there's not many people left to destroy the world anymore anyway. Its rumored there is still a few colonies on the eastern continent, but none knows for sure.

Nanaki arrives in Nibelheim, greeted by rotting buildings. He wants to rest for the night but doesn't trust the area. One building still stands high and strong, Shinra manor. Nanaki wanders up the hill to the manor. Wary of his surrounds, rustling in the trees, the gravel slips under his feet, and a man staring down on him from a window in Shinra manor. He smirks as he enters the house.

To be continued


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine… I'm alittle late for this

Chapter 3: Shinra Manor

The hard wood floor of the manor had always made Nanaki uncomfortable. So now that it was covered in splinters and had been decaying for over 500 years it was horrible. In the main room was a huge hunk of rusted metal, it looked like one of those widow things from deep-ground. Anyway back to the focus, some shadowy figure had been watching Nanaki from the top floor. As Nanaki walks up the stairs he finds freshly killed monsters, looks like they were trying to get up the stairs to something. There are holes in the floor… strangely they were clumped in perfect triangle forms. He gets up the stairs into the right side room; this is where the figure was… the brick wall was blown open. He looks down the tunnel to the floors down below. Nanaki is muttering to himself as the figure approaches him from behind.

A green light fills the room and the shadow is frozen in place kneeling down to grab Nanaki.

"Ha! I never go anywhere without a time materia! fo…." Nanaki says frozen in place himself.

"Well I never walk around without reflect enabled" Says the voice as it walks in a circle around Nanaki. The figure sits next to Nanaki and groans in pain as his joints all pop.

"Uuughh…. Still working out the stiffness, 400 years of sleep does that to you." Begins the voice, "The years have been good to you Red, except this grey hair here" The man starts feeling the hair under Nanakis chin. Nanaki growls in a defensive tone a natural reaction to the situation, even though he feels oddly... comfortable. The stop wears off and Nanaki falls to the floor. He looks up at the man, "I thought you were dead" he faints.

He wakes to red velvet, he lifts his head and looks over the room, coffins line the wall. He puts his head down and begins to cry. "The Nanaki I knew would never cry in sadness… he howled" says a familiar deep voice. Nanaki howls and tackles the man, "Your dead! Stop haunting me!" he begins to beat the man about the face. The man stands leaving him on the floor. "Vincent… how?" stammers Nanaki.

"I was dead; I walked the beautiful fields of the next world with Shelke for 10 years. Then a great spirit approached me… it demanded I pay for my sins, so we struck a deal. I don't have to burn, but I had to walk this world for another 600 years alone." whispers Vincent.

"Why 600? Why not 500 or 1000?" asks Nanaki.

"That's not important, but what I would like to know is why you're here, Red?" asks Vincent in an uncharacteristic curious tone.

Nanaki begins to explain his dream and how he wants to see the north cave before he dies, and how he was only stopping here for a night.

"Ahhh yes I see, good idea, you can rest here and we can talk about the past." Says Vincent "We can talk the way we used to from our seats on the Highwind, although back then it was playful tactics about our next move as we gazed at the map."

Vincent sits against the wall and Nanaki lies down next to him. He looks between the grimy floor and Vincent for a moment before resting his head on Vincent's leg. Vincent begins to scratch Nanaki's head without even looking at him before asking "Do you remember how Cid died?"

"Yes" answers Nanaki gently

Cid, everyone thought he would die the way Barret went, getting a heart attack after yelling at some worker. He managed to stop smoking for Shera and the kid's sake. There wasn't a person who knew him that didn't get scolded during that rough month. He even managed to get Nanaki for shedding a few hairs on the ship. Afterwards he became visible healthier. He even began running laps around the Shera when ever he landed. After the Omega incident the only use left for airships was playing taxi for people and cargo that needed to get between the continents. The pay was good enough for Cid to except, although he never actually talked to passengers, he wasn't a people person.

Anyway, the day it happened was beautiful, clear skies. Cid was flying a large group of passengers over the west continent to get to the east. Now he never did this, he usually flew over the ocean, but one passenger paid his company rep a large amount of Gil so he could see the mountains. So Cid with a nice bonus in his account altered his path. Unknown to anyone on board, the Shera apparently looked like prey to a pack of griffins on the ground and they began to attack. Cid was the only member of the crew who had ever fought anything so he took control as his pilot "pissed his pants" as said by Cid. Unfortunately the griffins ripped a hole in the balloon and one flew straight into the engine. The shera was going down and Cid ordered everyone to the back while he stayed on the bridge. The Shera crashed head first into the foot of a mountain… Everyone aboard made it out… except Cid. His body was dragged out by a brave passenger, funny enough he had a cigarette in his mouth, when the fat lady sings…

"Cid was honored as a hero, I didn't miss that funeral," says Nanaki

Vincent sits looking straight forward. The two of them sit there and reminisce like daft old men for hours on end before Nanaki falls asleep on Vincent's lap.

The next morning Nanaki helps himself to some meat on a table in the manor. "I still think you should come with me to the north cave Vincent, I mean you could help me get there faster." pleads Nanaki

"I can't do that Red, I must stay here." Says Vincent

"Alright then" Pouts Nanaki

Nanaki walks off down the dark tunnel between the mountains of Nibel.

"Wait Red!" yells Vincent who comes running, "take this, it's a new summon materia, it mite come in handy, I found it in a new cave that opened up here in these mountains, where the old reactor used to be" Vincent kneels down and pats Nanaki on the head and walks back to Nibel.

"I can't help but realize he didn't say good bye" growls Nanaki as he continues walking.

To be continued


	4. Chapter 4

This Fanfic obviously isn't going to be finished, Sorry about that, I gave it a read over today and I must say I was a terrible writer. Anyway I've forgotten a lot of where I was going, and how other people died, and stuff like that. Not to mention I haven't played Dirge or 7 in so long I don't even get some of my own references. Anyway, 3 years later I'm calling this case closed, if you are seeing this you must have liked the story, and while I wasn't stopping anyone from doing this in the first place I invite anyone to rewrite it themselves. I would like to see it if that happened, my email is . I do have some notes that might help… Bye everyone.

P.S. needs a reference to CidxVincent somewhere, hmmmm


End file.
